Sound compression/decompression peripherals are commercially available for personal computers. These sound compression/decompression peripherals typically convert sound waves into analog electrical signals, digitize and compress these analog electrical signals into compressed digital sound data, and store the compressed digital sound data in a personal computer. These peripherals also typically retrieve the stored compressed digital sound data from the personal computer, decompress and convert the compressed digital sound data into analog electrical signals, and drive a speaker to recreate sound waves representative of the originally received sound waves. With such a sound compression/decompression peripheral, multiple types of sounds including speech and/or music may be stored and retrieved on a personal computer.
A user of such a conventional sound compression/decompression peripheral typically controls the operation of the device from the keyboard of the personal computer. Alternatively, the user may control operation of the device via a mouse or other manual entry pointing device. If sound reception and compression is to be initiated, for example, the user determines which of the keys or combinations of keys on the computer keyboard must be pressed in order to start the desired operation. If a mouse is used, the user typically moves the mouse to identify a particular selection and then presses a key on the mouse to select the identified selection. Then, if sound reception and compression is to be halted, the user must redetermine which of the keys or combination of keys on the computer keyboard must be pressed in order to halt the operation. If a mouse is used, the user typically redetermines which selection to identify, moves the mouse to identify that selection and then represses the key on the mouse. This type of user interface for operating a sound compression/decompression peripheral may be cumbersome, unnatural, confusing, and difficult for some users to use. A sound compression/decompression device having a more convenient, natural, understandable, and easy to use user interface is therefore sought.